Christopher Sickels uses puppets to create stark, emotive, and strange illustrations for various publications. It amazes me how surreal these are especially when one considers that the same image, rendered in the normal, two dimensional line drawings found in many magazines, would go largely unnoticed.

Red Nose Studio [Artist’s Site] : LCSV4

Having documented the battles betwixt warring cephalopods in Feudal Japan, and having failed to convince the denizens of Threadless of the hipster coolness of his t-shirt design, Phineas X. Jones does what he should have done all along and put out another spectacular print with which he shall drain your bank account.

Octopus Samurai [octophant[x]us]

Illustration from Don Quixote by Gustave Doré

Arte - Pinturas - Gustave Dore - Quijote [PENUMBRA] : kagami

I seem to remember seeing this before, though I’ll be damned if I can remember where. The inscription, from what can be made out reads as follows:

To R.H. Barlow, Esq., whose Sculpture hath given Immortality to this trivial Design of his oblig’d of all obdt (obedient) Servant.

Cthulhu
H.P. Lovecraft
11th May, 1934

Barlow was a close friend of Lovecraft and collaborated with him on several stories including, one might reasonably conclude, one of his most famous, The Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft went so far as to make Barlow his literary executor.

Despite its crude nature, it’s still a great representation of Cthulhu, not only because it is directly from the mind of his creator but also for the inclusion of the multiple, spider-like eyes. Few illustrations of the Lord of R’lyeh come to mind that show him this way.

Cthulhu in the eyes of his creator. [My[confined]Space]

Alice’s Adventures in Steamland, Guillaume Dubois

Steampunk Myths and Legends Entry: Guillaume Dubois [CGSociety] : Super Punch

An illustration from Doodle.nl for the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad; specifically for an article about nightmares. I think the thing I like most about this piece is how unconventional the dream monsters are in this. I loathe to think of having to personally experience the terror of the Finger Train.

Doodle.nl [Artist Site] : Step-by-step

I’ll echo the sentiment over at M[c]S and say that this is one of the better shoggoth illustrations I’ve seen.

Also, that gentleman’s moustache is not going save him this time.

A Proper Shoggoth [My[confined]Space]

Three posters for the Sci-Fi Channel, spoofing popular horror and science fiction tropes. This is, I think, my favorite in the sense that it almost a completely perfect reversal of the 50s, alien invasion image. The Creature From the Black Lagoon is a close second.

Sci-Fi Channel: Lagoon, Zombie, Aliens [I Belive in Advertising] : Good Conduct Well-Chastised

Sleeping Cthulhu by Rob Stanley [RedBubble]

Elizabeth Henry’s series of illustrations inspired by a nightmare she had in which a giant cuttlefish devoured the moon. I love pieces like these because — like a good children’s book illustration — they maintain that delicate balance between lightheartedness and menace.

lizzelizzel [Artist’s Site]

We here at Ectomo are devout admirers of Edward Gorey, so much so that there is a small shrine to the man located in a former supply closet off of Eliza’s office. It provides a safe, quiet sanctuary to meditate or spout surrealist nonsense, albeit in a hushed, reverent tone. It also means that our supplies are strewn willy-nilly all over the rest of our workspace. As I write this I pause on occasion to eye the teetering stack of typewriter ribbons that casts a long, swaying shadow over my desk. To my knowledge we don’t even possess a typewriter, and yet someone, obviously, has been stockpiling them like so many cans of beans. I can only assume that at least one among us expects the post-apocalypse to be…verbose.

But enough about the strange hoarding practices of bloggers, this is about Edward Gorey. Many of you surely know his work as we do and yet the full breath of his output must still remain unknown to me for I was completely unaware of this gem of a title. In short The Recently Deflowered Girl: The Right Thing To Say On Every Dubious Occasion is a book containing advice for the modern young woman of 1965 should she find herself in an awkward situations following the loss of her virginity; advice that remains surprisingly relevant today. Said pearls of wisdom have been dispensed, the Editor’s Note informs us, by one Miss Hyacinthe Phypps; a maven in matters pertaining to correct feminine behavior.

What follows is Gorey at his best, a collection of the most absurd, nonsensical situation ever to befall a young woman entering into the strange, new world of bodily fluid exchange. They range from the humorous to the downright creepy, and many times overlapping — like the one after the jump— an ability the Gorey is well-known for. I confess the urge to simply post every single page but really LiveJournal user Bo-Bailey deserves the click-through for taking the time to scan the volume in its entirety. It is most certainly worth a read.

Continue Reading…

Chocolate 2008

Melanie Bilenker makes jewelry from precious metals, resin, wood, and her own hair, arranging the strands into tiny snapshots of everyday life.

The Victorians kept lockets of hair and miniature portraits painted with ground hair and pigment to secure the memory of a lost love. In much the same way, I secure my memories through photographic images rendered in lines of my own hair, the physical remnants. I do not reproduce events, but quiet minutes, the mundane, the domestic, the ordinary moments.

I like the way she illustrates the figures in her pieces; they have a natural looseness and fluidity that works well with the intimate nature of what they depict.

melanie bilenker jewelry [Artist’s Site] : Drawn!

“They’re Little Girls And Boys!” by Sidney Sime for the poem “Zagabog” from the book Fancy Free by Eden Phillpotts. Sime was most famous for the illustrations he did for the Irish fantasy writer Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, or Lord Dunsany. H.P. Lovecraft was a great fan of both Dunsany and Sime, whose influences show themselves often in his work.

Sidney Sime - Zagabog Illustration, 1901 [MONSTER BRAINS] :
The Sidney Sime Page : Golden Age Comic Book Stories

Eric Fortune’s introspective paintings make me a touch melancholy. Part of that is the content: iconic girls in balletic poses with implied, sad goals, rendered with milky color. But it is also the very existence of such a person as Mr. Fortune, who is 32 years old and until a few days ago, totally unknown to me. Bratty yahoos like the kid who recently vomited on a Mondrian (Google it; I refuse to give that bore any more linkage) are more widely recognized as “artists” than the ramen-supping drudges who can pluck scenes like this from their live, nude brains. On demand, even. As if function, skill, and work ethic were somehow antithesis to appreciation.

But I am not yet bitter. Merely tangy.

Eric Fortune.com [Artist’s site]
Eric Fortune’s Blog [Blogspot]

Sotheby’s has another auction coming up for completely amazing things that I will never be able to afford. This month, on the 17th, 42 original drawings by Ernest Howard Shepard for the four Winnie the Pooh books are on the block including this, perhaps the most iconic Pooh image. The catalogue note reads:

This original illustration is reproduced on page 159 of Winnie-the-Pooh and comprises a full-page illustration in the published volume. It represents one of the iconic images of Winnie-the-Pooh and comes from the final chapter in which Christopher Robin gives a Pooh party, and we say good-bye.

“He nodded and went out …and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh – bump, bump, bump – going up the stairs behind him.”

Estimated value is between 40,000 and 60,000 GBP. I suppose I’ll just have to settle for the catalogue for $48.00.

‘That sort of Bear’: E.H. Shepard’s Winnie-the-Pooh From the Collections of Stanley J Seeger and Christopher Cone [Sotheby’s] : Bibliodyssey